Digital Renaissance and the Power of People

Noelle Zobrist, historiographer

The vision for the operation and future of Camerata exists in two parts: the practical, and the philosophical.

An effective military combines the intellect of its officers with the strength of its soldiers, which operate together to produce success. A brilliant mind, isolated and incorporeal, is as useless as the dullest one, and a powerful body without a brain to direct it would only ever stumble around without purpose.

Think of two people you know who fit the following descriptions. The first is a thinker, a proselytizer, a philosopher, a preacher - whose myriad thoughts and opinions amount to no action. The second is a star athlete, an incredible physical specimen of a human, a person with incredible accomplishments in sport - who seems to lack two brain cells to keep one another company.

Each of these people is skilled on their own, but they need more; they need what the other lacks.

In short, they need each other.

Camerata LLC was formed with the intention of collaboration, of creating cooperation between brain and brawn. The effects of humans combining their talents and strengths is stunning; one and one does not equal two, but four, or six, or eight. The potential is infinite. 

A perfect example is this CCTV footage of commuters in Perth, Australia, pushing an enormous, 1000-ton subway car to one side to free a man whose leg had become entrapped when he slipped between platform and car. Clearly, none of them could have accomplished this alone, but with their combined strength and purpose, they were able to do something astonishing.

By contrast, consider the outcome of the Third Servile War, the last in a series of slave rebellions in the Roman Empire occurring in approximately 73 BC. Initially united through common purpose, these men overthrew their masters and overcame imperial forces sent to subdue them without difficulty. Within two years their numbers swelled from seventy men to over a hundred thousand men, women, and children who, to the great alarm of the Roman Senate, appeared to be almost unstoppable. But the finale to the drama did not occur in victory for the oppressed; at the end, when loomed the arrival of innumerable Roman reinforcements, their leader urged coherence but was disregarded by a large portion of his followers. These followers broke off and attacked head-on, resulting in losses of over 10,000 fighting men, while more than 5,000 others fled, pursued by the well-trained Roman armies, and by them, eventually, subdued and killed. These events marked the start of the crumbling of the formerly-unstoppable slave rebellion; without this cohesion, the Roman armies were able to sweep in and end the rebellion once and for all. 

Here is a self-evident reality: discord divides; it is the death of higher goals. 

Where does this leave us? You, the reader, no doubt understand this concept already, and you probably also know these concepts are far easier preached than practiced. 

At Camerata Digital, our goal is not to change the world. On a global scale there have been but a few dozen individuals who truly affected the world. At Camerata, we want to affect the lives of those around us for the better. And we hope they go on to affect the lives of those around them. And they go on, and so on and so forth. Change, whether positive or negative, starts within, right at the core of the individual. We cannot march on Washington and demand they correct all worldly injustices overnight. We cannot hold a summit in the stars and demand an end to human suffering.

But we can help those around us. We can collaborate, we can cooperate. And when cooperation exists, as with the metro car in Australia, there follows power. And that is the power to revolutionize, to initiate a digital renaissance.

The Florentine Camerata is credited with the creation of opera, a revolutionary concept at the time, before which nobody had thought to marry music with language, or to tell an entire epic through spirited melodies and lyrics. Their legacy lives on in the form of musicals, on Broadway, in classical operas such as Mozart's 'The Marriage of Figaro'.

What will your legacy be? Before you answer, consider a prerequisite question: will you have a legacy?

The sobering reality is that many of us will pass from the earth without a legacy. The word opera has been on the lips of humanity for hundreds of years; as long as it exists in the hearts and minds of at least one person, the Florentine Camerata will not have died.

The next blog will examine the concept of a legacy more closely. One outstanding characteristic of a legacy, regardless of anything else, is the number of people involved. One person does not leave a legacy because one person achieved something for himself. One person leaves a legacy because he affected many people.

Be not the metaphorical island. It is not possible, even if you are convinced you are a loner who needs nobody else. This is a fantasy and not grounded in reality. Speak, listen, laugh, collaborate, and clash, with other people. 

You may find that by doing so, you create a legacy. You may find that by doing so, you become, in fact, immortal.